Posted
by
samzenpus
on Wednesday November 03, 2010 @10:33PM
from the gold-frankincense-and-mice dept.

crudmonkey writes "Researchers have discovered a biological shocker: female boa constrictors are capable of giving birth asexually. But the surprise doesn't end there. The study in Biology Letters found that boa babies produced through this asexual reproduction — also known as parthenogenesis — sport a chromosomal oddity that researchers thought was impossible in reptiles. While researchers admit that the female in the study may have been a genetic freak, they say the findings should press researchers to re-think reptile reproduction. Virgin birth among reptiles, especially primitive ones like boas, they argue may be far commoner than ever expected."

More interesting than the article is that I now know there is such a thing as a serpentarium. Everywhere I've lived, and in all the movies I've watched, they've just been called 'reptile zoo' or something similar.

I imagine people go into a serpentarium and the lights are low. Everyone sits down, reclines their seat back and stares upward. Then the lights come up to reveal thousands of serpents suspended from the ceiling, writhing around. People ooh and aah.

I imagine people go into a serpentarium and the lights are low. Everyone sits down, reclines their seat back and stares upward. Then the lights come up to reveal thousands of serpents suspended from the ceiling, writhing around. People ooh and aah.

A lot of people make the mistake of equating "Immaculate Conception" to the virgin birth of Jesus. Actually, it refers to the birth of Mary (mother of Jesus) being born without Original Sin. What the author is referring to is the Annunciation, which is the virgin conception of Jesus within Mary.

This is not what Immaculate Conception means. The Immaculate Conception is the conception of Mary, not of Jesus, with the idea being that Mary is conceived without original sin so as to make her a proper vessel for Jesus.
Then again, since snakes don't have original sin, maybe every snake conception is immaculate.

Two WW chromosomes. In mammals, we have X and Y chromosomes to determine sex—but in reptiles, fish, and of course birds, the norm for a female is ZW, and the norm for a male is ZZ. This brought to you by Tilde R: Helping Those Who Hate RTFA.

It's not immaculate conception, it's a virgin birth. They are different. Immaculate conception means born without original sin (as in Mary was born without original sin and thus Christ was too). If you want more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immaculate_Conception [wikipedia.org]

I know this is a common misunderstanding but it is incorrect. I'm not Catholic, I've just been corrected about it in the past and thought I'd pass on the knowledge.

The mother in question gave birth to not one, but two snake litters of all-female snakes with WW-chromosomes. Male snake cells have two Z chromosomes, while female snakes have a Z and a W. This is the first time a reptile has been seen with two W chromosomes, something thought peculiar to fish and amphibians. The snakes' litters also retained the mother's rare genetic coloring

And it's actually fairly common in the insect world. Worker bees, for example, lay unfertilized eggs (which, as always, give birth to "drones," or male bees, the same as when the queen lays unfertilized eggs). But for bees, this is almost certainly a throwback to millions of years ago, before the current roles were set in stone -- as drones are incapable of fertilizing non-queens, and workers wouldn't be laying if there were any queens in residence. The modern day outcome is A Bad Day, though in years go

Interesting tidbit: The vast majority of known snake species are capable of swimming. Get a snake washed out to sea, let it drift between islands on flotsam, and with this mutation, a lone female is suddenly capable of being the foundation of a new population in a new ecosystem.

While not advantageous to individuals, this female-only birth trait would be a powerful force in mass extinction events, as it leads to a diverse set of multiply adaptive groups being formed, each specialized in a different direction for a different ecosystem niche. If a meteor equivalent hits, and all the rules of living change to some degree, you have a greater chance of having some in the right niche to survive.

The downside is if female-only births become too common, you stand a chance of losing genetic diversity in the smaller groups - so it being in the background like this, only occasionally popping up makes sense for a species that might have gained benefit from it in more ancient life cycles.

Many lizards reproduce photogenically as a quick Google or wiki search will show any interested party. Less common in snakes, it is true. Boidae are hardly primitive reptiles, but they are relatively primitive snakes. The news here is that this particular individual appears to be a switch hitter, reproducing both sexually and asexually.

The Immaculate Conception was the conception of _Mary_ conception so that she would not be burdened by Original Sin, leaving her a suitable vessel for her to carry The Christ Child. It's "Mary _of_ the Immaculate Conception, or _who_ _was_ immaculately conceived.

That isn't even my mythos, but it always amazes me how many people don't have the first clue about the facts of their own. Wasn't there a post here recently that said the people who know the least about faith are the faithful, or maybe it was that

Many lizards reproduce photogenically. A quick Google or wiki search will show any interested party many examples. Snakes are not primitive reptiles as the story says, but boas are relatively primitive snakes. The story here is that this individual appears to be a switch hitter, reproducing both sexually and asexually.

Essentially if the female is unable to find any mate in this year's mating season, it still have the option to reproduce regardless. There is a penalty of having exactly the same genetic code, but I guess it is a much better option than dying without passing any genes at all.

At the same time if the male is available, she can make use of all the advantages of extra genotype permutations that comes with sexual reproduction. It really is a win-win!

The article says that the snake gave birth to a litter of all female snakes, only with a peculiar chromosomal makeup -- WW instead of ZW (female) or ZZ (male).

What I wonder is what the significance of WW is versus ZW, since YY in human terms isn't viable.

I also have to wonder what good this is in nature if all such snakes can produce are female offspring. On at least the surface -- unless asexual reproduction is common -- this be a seemingly not-so-useful adaptation in terms of survival.

I notice that this article is slowly working it's way down the homepage without even a First Post - perhaps all you men feel slightly inadequate now there's proof that yes, we women can do without you!
Cue Anonymous Coward's relentless troll-biting and the silent army of female-hating Mods! GO!

I seem to recall reading about this many years ago. Not seeing anything on the web older than a few days though. As I recall it only happens under certain circumstances relating to the age of the snake and specific environmental factors including availability (or lack?) of food, temperature, humidity(?) etc.
Anybody else hear this before?

I know no one actually cares, but the Immaculate Conception refers to the conception of Virgin Mary, which was accomplished through the usual means, but was free of Original Sin. It is not the virgin birth of Jesus.

I believe the term you're looking for (and finally spit out in the last sentence) was "virgin birth." Immaculate conception is something else entirely. Specifically, it's the uniquely Catholic doctrine, developed as part of the cult of the Virgin Mary over the past 500 years (finalized only about 100 years ago), that Mary was conceived without sin. God put a kind of "sin shield" around the egg as it was being fertilized apparently, and so she was born without the taint of the original sin (i.e., "immacul

This may sound like a grammar nit, but I found it really distracting to read "commoner" in the summary. Although "commoner" can technically be used as an adjective, it is strongly discouraged due to the potential for confusion with the noun "commoner" which in some sentence constructions can function as an adjective with a somewhat different meaning. For example:

"The commoner dress of the era was rags."

This can be read in two ways:

The more common dress of the era (compared to something described previous

LOL. Way to go, Slashdot.:-) I loaded the article, it showed 0 replies at -1, replied immediately, and there they are, 250+ comments.

Either Slashcode sucks big hairy donkey balls, or 250+ motherfuckers just jumped in to destroy my first fp try in about ten years. I'll go with the motherfucker theory because Perl code can never, ever fail.

Whilst both absurd concepts, they are not the same thing.
The immaculate conception was something invented by the catholic church to plug a loophole in the story about a mere human giving birth to a god.

... This is absolutely fascinating. However, I suppose I might as well be the person to point out that while this is a virgin birth, it's not an "immaculate conception" [wikipedia.org] since that apparently has do with a Catholic doctrine regarding Mary being born free of original sin.

The Immaculate Conception [wikipedia.org] refers to the birth of Mary (a child conceived without the taint of original sin). The Virgin Birth [wikipedia.org] refers to the birth of Jesus (a child born to a virgin). They are not at all the same thing. You are approximately the 6,696,844,874th person to get them confused.

For those wondering about the calculation:6,697,254,041 - world population (from Google)- 409,166 Catholic priests (source [thaindian.com])- 1 (me)---------------------6,696,844,874

Extremely interesting. What the summary doesn't point out is that the boa had in fact mated with multiple males before this virgin birth, so in fact it could have used the traditional method too. I thought animals only did this when they had no access to sperm.

Oh, I'm being eatenBy a boa constrictor,A boa constrictor,A boa constrictor,I'm being eaten by a boa constrictor,And I don't like it--one bit.Well, what do you know?It's nibblin' my toe.Oh, gee,It's up to my knee.Oh my,It's up to my thigh.Oh, fiddle,It's up to my middle.Oh, heck,It's up to my neck.Oh, dread,It's upmmmmmmmmmmffffffffff . . .

I'm trying to understand what in TFA means that the snake was born without original sin. It's been a while since I read the Bible, but I seem to remember somewhere near the start that the snake was cast out of the garden of eden for being a bit of a git and had its legs removed. A snake without original sin would therefore have legs.

Can we just say asexual reproduction when we mean asexual reproduction, and leave misquoting the Bible to Christians please?